Tristan Thompson just shared some big paternity news amid his drama with Maralee Nichols. Harvey Englander, Nichols’ public relations consultant, told In Touch Weekly on Tuesday that Thompson, who players for the Sacramento Kings, is confirmed to be the father of Nichols’ newborn son. On Monday, Thompson announced a paternity test confirmed that he is the father and issued an apology to Khloe Kardashian.
“Today, paternity test results revealed that I fathered a child with Maralee Nichols. I take full responsibility for my actions. Now that paternity has been established, I look forward to amicably raising our son,” Thompson said in his Instagram Story. “I sincerely apologize to everyone I’ve hurt or disappointed throughout this ordeal both publicly and privately.”
Videos by PopCulture.com
Thompson then sent a message to Kardashian. “You don’t deserve this. You don’t deserve the heartache and humiliation I have caused you. You don’t deserve the way I have treated you over the years,” he said, adding, “My actions certainly have not lined up with the way I view you. I have the upmost [sic] respect and love for you. Regardless of what you may think. Again, I am so incredibly sorry.”
“There was never any doubt that Tristan Thompson was the father of Maralee Nichols’ baby,” Englander told In Touch “Tristan made numerous false and defamatory statements and declarations about Maralee over the past few months, and she is taking his contrite statement today in the context of all of those statements.” Nichols, a former personal trainer, filed a paternity suit against Thompson in June 2021, claiming that she became pregnant by him in March. At the time, Thompson said they had sex but requested a paternity test. Nichols gave birth to a baby boy on Dec. 1.
“I saw Tristan in March 2021 around his birthday. He told me he had wanted to see me,” Nichols said to E! News, adding she’s lived in California since 2019. “I agreed to meet him in Houston at a private party on March 12. I never drove a Maserati to meet Tristan, as he claimed. He has never even been in my vehicle. I used an Uber or was driven by friends that weekend. Houston was one of many nights we spent together. Soon after his birthday weekend in Houston, Tristan invited me to visit him in Boston.”
Thompson and Kardashian have been an off-and-on couple since 2016 and have a daughter together named True. In her Instagram Story on Dec. 30, Kardashian said, “There’s going to be very painful moments in your life that will change your entire world in a matter of minutes. These moments will change YOU. Let them make you strong, smarter and kinder. But don’t you go and become someone that [you’re] not.”
